Defective
by HeartsRekindled
Summary: An Irken ex-military General and her protégé are stationed on Earth, creating new struggles for both Zim and Dib.
1. Irken Normalcy

Half-assed synopsis: An abnormal Irken female discovers that her life has been a lie as she and her mistress begin their trials on Earth. Will foreign concepts get the best of her defective mind? (ugh….summaries always turn out so friggin cheesy)

A/N: Hey, folks. You'll probably be really confused once this chapter is over, so I apologize in advance. Feel free to RR, give me some tips perhaps on how I can (if need be) clarify this chapter, because I hated it as much as you will; Too much skipping around and no exposition…not to mention totally devoid of the show's main characters. But do flame me gently…My ego is a delicate little thing, especially with this being my first published fic and all : Bear with me for the first few chapters, Zim, Dib and the gang will present themselves soon enough. I'm eager to get to that part, too.

And a Disclaimer: Guess who I'm not! That's right, Mr. Scolex, the reason for my damnation through idol worship. He owns Zim, Dib, Irkens anybody else I might use…But me…I own Hexa and especially Skibby. I dunno if there's a copyright on Spork. He's never mentioned in the syndicated part of the series…so technically, I can do what I want with him. WHEE!

Chapter I – Irken Normalcy 

When asked to tell about my life, I find it difficult to do so. The words that could convey it in my native language have eluded me for decades. That is why this narrative will be written in the dialect of the Earthanoids. Since coming to this planet, I've traveled many a galaxy, and Earth English seems to hold dizzying numbers of synonyms.

Many aliens have an interesting viewpoint on the Irken ways of birth. For forty years into my existence, the circumstances of _my_ birth had remained unveiled to me, so among the Irken, I suppose I'm as much as an alien as the "filth" that swarms this Earth. Contrary to popular belief, though, I am Irken, though my features would not _exactly_ suggest that I am.

I am quite small in stature, even for an Irken. At my relaxed antennae, I stand only at about four foot three inches. The antennae themselves are, more than a little relaxed, shall we say. They should hang down to my feet, but Mistress has invented a sort of "brace" which I sometimes wear. This keeps them loosely coiled and at a comfortable length just a little past my shoulders. With such weight to one's antennae however, it is predictable that they are less as apt for their functions as the antennae of any "normal" Irken. They are highly sensitive, people must bear in mind when they speak to me that a dull roar must be employed, otherwise I might think that they are yelling. I also have a unique bone-structure, and find it easier from time to time that I should run in the manner that a quadruped would, braving the ground on all fours. But perhaps the strangest thing about my biology is the tail-like appendage that is connected to my lower-posterior side. My mistress conjectured that it was the start of the development a horribly twisted and long third leg. While in incubation, my pod was severely damaged, you see. More on that later…

Before you condole me for my hideous little deformities, let it be known that they not once have created a liability. I find my tail quite favorable, it is a known fact that tails help to maintain one's balance, and my equilibrium may be a little less than calibrated since my antennae are so long. My mistress was quite supportive of me the first time she told me that my uniqueness was unnatural and inevitably frowned upon by the Irken government.

Not that the government mattered by the time she told me the odd tale of my birth. She and I were rebels of a sort. When we were given a mission, Mistress encouraged me never to suffer the Almighty Tallest and never give them the gratification of conning for my trust. She could not stand them, and I will explain why.

My mistress, General Hexa, is a very tall female specimen. In fact, the Tallest are concerned with the succession to the Irken throne, her height is such. But her height is merely what makes her eligible for reign, The Tallest are really afraid of what my mistress might do for the empire if she did come to rule. She is an indecisive individual, but delusional is what they like to call her. Some say that Mistress Hexa would liberate the Irken colony planets that she helped to create. Others survive on the notion that she would abuse the military, demanding a chaotic invasion.

In spite of all this speculation, Mistress Hexa would discard the chance to dictate the race at its first notice. She was far too content with her retirement and busy with her studies of me.

She and I lived in a place called Retreatia, an oasis of a planet. It was not a large planet, as it had been leased to us and only us. In size, Retreatia was no larger than a moon of your solar system's Pluto. It was a lovely place dotted with isles and lapped by gentle tides of an ocean.

Ah, that ocean. Such memories I have of it. When I was barely a smeet, Mistress told me to avert my curiosity from water, but unfortunately, curiosity pairs with my "condition". I did not listen and landed myself under her medical supervision for a few weeks. I learned the hard way about Irken reactions to Dihydrogen Oxide.

Humans, to begin to understand this condition of mine, you must know of the Irken way of life. The Irken are much less creatures than they are programs assigned to an age-long task. I was born during a period of unrest in the Empire. Two days prior to my birth, a crazed Invader by the name of Zim destroyed a lot of Irk's terrain, including the birthing facilities. Mistress tells me that I was the only smeet brought into existence that day, as the Tallest, foreseeing the deformities that would arise from this batch of smeets, called for a purge. If they were not already so, most smeets were rendered dead, but Mistress stumbled across my pod when she returned home from her first invasion, so luckily, I was taken refuge before that specific purge.

All we Irken carry these Paks. Paks keep order, I am told, but mine does not work in the way that most do. Mistress created an experimental Pak for me, one that gave no guidelines to my fate. For this, I am far more unique than just having a few bodily abnormalities. My brain is untainted, as Mistress likes to put it. She admittedly admires me for this fact, having no dictation of with whom my loyalty lies. It is mandatory among the race to have Tallest-supporting programming. This is the main reason that she resigned from her career as a military General. She wished to do something that no Irken had ever done before. She wished to "raise" me, as your parents did you, human reader. Of course, Irkens have no maternal instinct at all, so, considering normal Irken "education", growing up was never an easy task for me.

A study of human children shows me that they perform poorly when isolated from their kind. When I learned of this, I was oddly reminded of myself. Mistress and I were, as far as I knew, the only of our species. As far as I knew, the two of us were domestic to Retreatia. She sheltered me from a government that I had so blasphemed with my being alive. Thusly, for thirty-eight years, I knew nothing of the Irken nor that my deformities were deformities, nor did I know that I was a rebel experiment of hers.

In retrospect, it may seem a little selfish of her. She only allowed me to know what she taught to me, never giving me access to the knowledge that was Irken prerogative. Had my Pak been designed like any average Irken's, I could have easily known the mysteries of my past. I would have known the name of the language I spoke and I would have known what a "male" is. Pak's are encyclopedias, and mine had been sabotaged.

In any case, I know now that we are not well liked among our species. I believe the term used for people like my mistress and me is as follows: Defective.


	2. A Call

A/N: Yay. This chapter was fun. It's quite significant, too, though it may not seem so now.

I realize that this particular fic has gotten little response, which is understandable. Fancharacters are unfamiliar and people don't really like them. Hell, I don't like most of them. It was bold of me to begin this fanfic with _my _Irkens. But hey, authors don't really write to please the masses. I'm no sell-out. I'm doing this for me. Besides, my OC's won't bite…well Hexa might…but still, they're not going to deflower poor Zim or anything. Ahem.RR is still appreciated, though. Okay, so ends my modest little plea for recognition.

**Chapter II – A Call**

Mistress and I were very docile for those forty years we spent on Retreatia. For kicks, we often conducted experiments on alien life forms. I seldom questioned where the aliens came from, but one day, when I did ask her, she told me that the alien had crash-landed on our planet. Even I, at a very tender age found this hard to believe.

She thought me dumber than I really was. Looking back on it, it is understandable, because a "learning" Irken such as myself had no standards to be compared to. She had no way to judge how quickly I was supposed to be able to comprehend things.

The species of alien that we most worked on were from Planet Pocky. The flared end of what I recognized to be an oversized screw was protruding from its head. It was relatively small, had webbed feet, and wore no clothing. Its body was flexible and moved like a bag of viscous jelly. They were, after all, a boneless people. My mistress was very enthralled about this, and told me that she wished she had a similar anatomy.

At that comment, even _I_ saw her as a little eccentric.

Many of my years were spent like this. It was not long before I began to question my existence, I am sure humans are familiar with the activity. My life had no direction to it, it seemed. I was just a tiny thing in the universe on an equally tiny planet. What was I to do when my Mistress was no longer around to entertain me? I couldn't speak any other languages, so I figured that after she passed I'd die a miserably lonely death on a desolate planet.

Luckily, the tables turned.

Mistress never told me how important my purpose really was until that one day. The day we got a transmission from planet Irk.

That morning, she told me to fetch the Spittle Runner and bring it to the waterfront. This could have been seen as a test, because she'd just recently taught me how to pilot the ship. She congratulated me on my successful efforts when I soon after docked the Runner. It is easy deciphering between congratulation and praise now that I know what the latter feels like. But back then, the meaning of "praise" was not known to me. My mistress was a good one, considering there were no documents containing the instruction to raising Irken children, but I think had she praised me rather than congratulated me at moments such as this, I would now think better of myself. Her congratulation was so hollow.

"The modifications I've done to the Spittle Runner will enable it to double as a submersible, Skibby," she said, "Today we test it by harvesting the specimens of the deep."

I frowned. She had already gone over how the acoustics and the paneling and the volume of the ship were readied for under-water travel, but I still had my skepticism. I crawled into the cockpit reluctantly. Reluctance is another common trait among defective Irkens, I have found. She crawled in next to me and settled her back against the pilot's seat. Suddenly the ship reared and I heard the metallic clangor of the gears shifting. I struggled to keep from bouncing out of my safety straps. Mistress moved her body in unison to the bouncing, and I wished to do the same, but I lacked the steel will that she had. I was too nervous about burning under the surface of the ocean.

The runner lifted, hovered a few-hundred meters and then dropped as soon as Mistress pronounced that the depth was enough. We slowly slunk into the water. I wanted to close my eyes, but I was somehow captivated by the dirty green liquid that closed in on our ship. It was crawling up the window, and it cut my view from Retreatia's orange sky. I became panicky. I didn't recall ever not being able to see that sky.

I clasped my hands between my legs and bit my lip, though I was shivering. I didn't want to discourage my mistress, much less insult her. She did her best to teach me bravery, but bravery isn't a technique, it is a trait, and thus far in my life, danger was quite the foreign concept.

"Beautiful," she said, "The ship is holding up perfectly."

I wished that I didn't know what water felt like exposed to my flesh. Being naïve might've lessened my fears.

We continued our descent and it became blacker and blacker until I could no longer see Mistress next to me. I groped around, until my hand caught the leg of her robe.

"Skibby," she scolded, "keep courage!"

I wondered how she could remain so calm. Just then, a heavy yellow glow flooded the cockpit. I had to squint at first, but once my eyes adjusted, I found that I was staring down the ugliest thing I'd ever seen. It must have been a marine creature, more than three times the size of my mistress in length. It had no arms or legs, but two lamp-like orbs on its face that I couldn't imagine being eyeballs. It's skin was a soiled-looking white which its internals were visible through. It had great, tapering tusks emerging from its bottom lip.

At this point, I concluded that I had to be in standby mode (if there is an Irken equivalent of sleep, it is standby, and we _do_ dream). I pinched hard at my legs that were huddled in my gut, trying to escape this hideous little fantasy, but it wasn't to any avail. I was very much awake.

"My word…" Mistress chortled. When I looked to her she was taking hasty notes, a smirk sweeping her face, "I only wish our net was bigger. This thing would make a fantastic addition to our collection."

Usually when Mistress spoke, I was very attentive. Today, I just stared in dumbfounded fear at this beast. Was it…docile? I hoped that it wouldn't attack us. I'd been attacked once before by a screw-headed alien during one of our studies. It was not at all pleasant, but the screw-head didn't exactly have gnashing teeth and such a beastly appearance. "Mistress," I stuttered, "Can you t-talk to it?" I said this remembering that when the screw-head attacked me, my Mistress spoke in tongues and the alien relented its flogging of me.

"No," she answered, and then went on to explain why, but a sound from the front window caught my attention. I was staring down a crack in the windshield. The terror that filled me was unavoidable. I crawled up in my seat as a tiny jet of water drooled and a puddle condensed where my feet had just been.

"Mistress," I squeaked.

She hushed me. "Do you want to provoke it? It may not be as friendly as you think. Now observe how to use the camera."

The crack spread quickly, and though no water was spilling from it, I could tell that our ship was ready to crack under pressure. Mistress went on explaining things, but I couldn't be blamed for not listening. I called to her once again, this time saying, "The runner!"

I could tell she was growing tired of me. Her palm whipped my face. I gripped where she'd slapped me, but almost oblivious to the pain, because we were about to die.

Luckily, the tables turned.

A high-pitched tone sounded and red light pulsed on and off. A transmission! We would have to go back to the base immediately to answer it.

"Oh no," Mistress breathed. She sounded fearful, so I assumed that she'd discovered the window. Not the case, she was lamenting over the call.

I read the screen. "The Almighty Tallest".

She settled her back into the seat and picked at her lip. Finally she sighed, and spoke up urgently. "Skibby, we are going to surface now. When we get home, I want you to stay outside and bathe. You stink."

I was in no mood to retaliate, although I had cleaned myself the day before. If it got us out of the water sooner, I'd let her believe that I was stinky. The Runner switched gears and it shifted upward. I watched the hideous sea-creature shrink into the gloom as we surfaced. A huge sigh escaped me and the tension was gone from my chest.

But as we finally were suspended in air again, Mistress prodded the window gently with her finger and said, "Oh…Oh me." The glass gave way, and the windshield shattered with a shrill force. My head ached and I pulled at my antennae. It was too loud.

Mistress's green eyes were wide. "Nothing that can't be fixed," her voice rasped. There was a lot of anger behind those suppressed words.

With a broken window, we had to travel slowly. It took us twice as long to get home, but the transmitter pulsed all the while. Whoever was calling was patient. This was out of the ordinary, as our calls were almost primarily from alien telemarketers. My head had cleared since the ordeal in the water, and I pondered things that I didn't have time to under the surface. Who were these "Almighty Tallest" that were calling. The title indeed sounded authoritative, if not a little laughable.

We landed and Mistress bid me toward the cleaning stall. She hastened back to the house, probably to answer the call.

I wondered. Was it confidential? She never usually shooed me away when there was a call. Most of the alien callers spoke different languages that I couldn't comprehend anyway, so why now would she tell me I stank when I in fact—didn't stink? Why would she make me stay outside?

But orders were just that, orders. She could threaten physical punishment if I defied her.

I made for the stall, slowly, as I was preoccupied with my musings and theories as to why she'd do this. She may have been ordering a new shipment of the screw-headed people to experiment on. I knew she had an outside source for those test subjects, but had never seen it. She wanted to keep her provider secret from me, for reasons I didn't know.

The stall was clogged with cleansing powder. I had to brush the drain before I removed my uniform, put on my goggles, and began the stall's wind cycle.

The Irken don't take showers, we'd burn. We have specially designed wind pods—stalls—that blow the antibacterial powder I mentioned earlier over our bodies.

My bath was not long. I'd set the wind cycle for only two minutes. This for two reasons: I knew I didn't stink, and also my antennae didn't react well to the sound of the stall blustering.

Looking back on it, it was quite funny that our stall was in plain sight. We were the only two on our planet, so any spectators weren't expected. Mistress and I were also, somehow accustomed to seeing each other nude. It was so casual that it didn't even cross my mind however "wrong" it might've been. Irken biology is actually quite, shall we say, limited when compared with a human?

In any case, this later had to be corrected. It is not socially acceptable for an Irken to even _think_ about being naked.

For a while, I sat outside the stall and pondered, dusting some of the excess powder off of my shoulders. I pulled my clothes back on. I headed back for the base. From behind the door, I heard my mistress scream. Nobly, I entered the house. This may have been a mistake.


	3. The Hideous Freak Smeet

A/N: Yay! Some familiar faces as the Tallest come into play. This chapter also assures people that Skibby, our narrator, is in fact female, if that wasn't already made clear. I'd like to thank some peoples who left me those friendly notes, because I find it easier to write with encouragement…and y'know, what choice do I have other than to obey the heel?

Chapter III – The Hideous Freak-Smeet 

I opened the door because I am a defective. I knew Mistress didn't want me around. Any normal Irken apprentice to her elegance would have obeyed without question. But she screamed. It was shrill and loud and unlike anything I'd ever heard from her, but I was positive that it was her, my mistress. My body responded by opening the door. The conscience part of my brain had no say in the matter.

Had she been in any serious trouble, I don't know what I would have done.

But I suppose the severity of the trouble is in the eye of the beholder.

I flung myself into the elevator quickly to make for the upper chambers of our house and the communications port. The platform couldn't have moved slower. Every millisecond spent waiting for that blasted number to change was a millisecond that I could be…doing something in her proximity. As I said, I had no plan as to how I would rescue or even console my troubled mistress.

At last, the elevator's doors parted and I threw myself into the corridors. Those hallways were bathed in a menacing red aura; at the end of them was a large opening for the communications port. I bounded inside. She was nowhere in sight, but…

The screen had been left in full-view, the walls of that particular room were projectors of a huge hologram. Of course, I'd never seen an image projected in this room on such a large scale; that would have been shock enough. But it was the image itself that paralyzed me. I was staring up at two beings. They were strangely familiar, and for a good reason. The two of them looked similar to my mistress and me, very similar. My heart ceased to beat. They looked too similar not to be—

I cannot describe what went through my mind in that moment. I do know that the first thing I felt was hope. Strange hope, like an age-old question of my existence had been answered. Then there was inevitable confusion as I'd been lied to about the existence of more like us. Then finally, there was fear in me when they looked away from a sheet of paper they were holding and met my gaze. Their gem-like eyes narrowed.

"Hey…who's that?" one of them said. Its eyes were a familiar purple, like the color of my mistress's robes. I'd never seen eyes of such a hue, so naturally I was dazzled. And it spoke! It spoke in the language I knew! Had there not been a screen between this creature and me, I may have flung myself at it for an embrace. With the information I have now on "it", that would have been a very, very, very bad idea. Nonetheless, I never remembered being so thrilled.

I plugged in quickly to the prospect: These are my people!

But its frown worsened as I smiled.

They stared. Both of them were wearing the strangest uniform I'd ever seen; more like battle-armor, really. Battle armor that coordinated with their eye color perfectly. The one to my right was clad in red, a good, familiar color that I associated with myself. Though they hadn't exactly warmed up to greet me, I had already decided that there was something vastly different about their presence. Their voices were pitched lower than ours were. It sounded unnatural at first. They also looked bigger, not necessarily taller than Mistress, but broader, sturdier. They had gossamer short little antennae, a huge contradiction to the coiled thickness that were our antennae. Lastly, there were no visible eyelashes.

"Well?" the red one poked.

"Almighty Tallest, this is Skibby. Skibby, these are our Almighty Tallest." That was the voice of my Mistress, who happened to be suspended in air, her boots swaying near my head. She'd been restrained. Her tone was uncommonly meek.

I could have kicked myself. I had allowed my adoration of these two regal creatures to distract me from aiding my mistress. With all haste, I climbed the walls and settled on the thick mechanical arms that harnessed her. "Shall I try to cut the restraints, my lady?" My Pak buzzed as the laser limbs extended from it.

She slowly shook her head. I backed off immediately, my mouth agape. She mustn't have been in her right mind. I didn't have much time to think on this, though. Before I came to, I was dangling upended from the ceiling alongside her. The restraints had grabbed my tail, so I twirled and oscillated a bit as I struggled. I noticed that a thin metal probe had found its way into the wiring of Mistress's Pak, which surprised me. Keep in mind that back then, I didn't understand the full function of the Pak. I saw them only as implements to our manual labor. I supposed that the probe had been issued to disable her from retaliating by the use of her Pak.

Suddenly, I suffered the same fate. It was eerie that I _felt_ the probe penetrate my Pak's circuitry; quite violating, to say the least.

I met the gaze of the Almighty Tallest, groped for my tail, and pulled myself up to keep the blood from spilling to my head. They were staring at something just below them and off-screen. It buzzed. A new sheet of paper was suddenly in the hands of the Purple one.

"Blank," it said, "No information on her at all."

"What?" the Red one spat. It zoomed away, giving view to its entire body structure. Its torso was thin and bent. It wore a robe that obscured its legs, and its feet played no role in walking, as the creature hovered to get around. Perhaps it wasn't part of my kin. It made its way to a large computer.

"Come to think of it," said the other, "I don't even think we have information on any Skibby. Are you looking into this?"

The machine that the Red one helmed beeped as it sifted through its files. "Well, there's a Skickis and a Skivvy…but I don't see anything—nope, nothing…DEFECTIVE!" When it faced us again, its eyes were twitching most maniacally.

"Yeah," Purple added, "And according to your records, you don't have a license for biologically engineering Irken beings, Hexa!"

It was strange to hear my mistress's name, even stranger hearing it from this creature who hardly knew us. Were they referring to me? I had not been biologically engineered…at least I didn't think so. I saved my thoughts for later, though. These creatures may have held the secret of my origins.

"What kind of sicko are you, huh? Bringing such an unfortunately misshapen freak-smeet into the world!"

Though I was propped up so the blood wouldn't rush to my head, I felt myself blush. Misshapen? I wondered. It must have been my tail. Mistress didn't have a tail, and from what I could see, neither did the Tallest.

"My tallest," Mistress retorted, "Please, I did not create Skibby. I…took her on as an apprentice before the third great purge."

"She's still an illegal unregistered Irken. She should have died like the rest of the batch," its red eyes were screwed-up in a glare, "Ugh, it's so small."

"And ugly," Purple winced, "Do you think it can even hear with those antennae?"

I might've responded to tell them that I could hear, but I was very distraught, and understandably so. I'd just been shunned by authoritarian figures of my own mysterious kind. My breath quickened. I felt a lump fizzle in my throat. So this is the secret to my past? I should be dead, but I'm a misshapen freak-smeet instead.

Mistress stared daggers at me not to cry.

It couldn't be helped. I released gobs of sobs and juicy tears. It wasn't my fault how immature I was. Mistress had always kept me in check as the minor.

Through soggy vision, I saw the Red one. It said, "We're pressing charges. An Irken representative officer should be by to pick you up in oh…eight hours?"

"And should you fail to win-over the control brains, you'll face punishment. All sorts of bad punishment. We're talkin' wedgies, public humiliation, meat; the works."

"Yeah, yeah! And we'll destroy your little friend there, too!"

"You cannot do this! You CAN'T! This is in violation to clause eighteen of my contract!" Mistress snarled and wriggled in her restraints.

"We can too, because according to this," it waved a long sheet of paper at the cameras, "we're still taller than you…and _what_ contract? You're retired."

Purple nodded its head and grinned. "We'll see _you_ on Judgementia, _Hexa_!"

The hologram was consumed in static, and then flickered off. We were left in the warm purple glow of the walls. Mistress was dropped from her restraints and landed precisely on her feet. She headed for the transmitter's controls and pounded them, fists blurred.

"That's _GENERAL_ Hexa!" she demanded to an audience that was not listening.


	4. Strange Fidelity

A/N: You'd think that with a four-day break from my schooling, I'd get this updated sooner. Nah, I'm lazy. Anyway, I had a lot of fun with this chapter, despite dreading writing it before. I don't know why I had cynicism before I started working on it. It came out so very naturally, I'm feeling quite accomplished with it. My only complaint is that it's not longer, it only took a session and a half to write. JOY!

Ooh, and a personal notey to the esteemed Dust Traveller: You're serious about giving me mention? Okay, but only if you _really_ want to…and only if you really have faith in me…because I don't want to get anybody's hopes up if your going to recommend this. This story's still in the making. It could end up…not so good. That's just like me to plunge into something before carefully planning it out. Your support is ohhh so verily appreciated.

HIT IT DONNIE! ...Ahem...(inside joke).

Chapter IV – Strange Fidelity 

There was a considerable amount of time spent watching Mistress upside-down, through my tears, pummeling any machinery she laid eyes on. Quite suddenly she stopped. Her expression was frighteningly apathetic. Such a face I'd never seen on her; it didn't suit her. Her eyes were bugged and blank; her mouth a thin line as she sucked her lips in. She didn't move. I was no expert on the matter, but I took her behavior as an indication of defeat. It was written all over her. With difficulty, I tried to repress the pathetic whimpers that issued from my bereavement. I should remain quiet in times like these. Hopefully, she'd forget that I was there; for I knew what was about to come.

She paced around a bit, and then came to a fixed position almost directly beneath me. She did not look up until a droplet of my tears was released from the tip of my antennae and landed on the back of her head. My breathing was shaky from denying it of woe, but when our eyes met, I wailed. Still, she seemed indifferent. She looked at her feet, noticing that she was in a small puddle of my tears. She tried smothering them into the ground under her boot. Her antennae were raised, and I think I saw her jaw quiver.

The most dreadful sort of anger is the nonchalant variation. It is rare, but when I see the silenced rage in a sentient being, I am paralyzed. My crying ceased, just like that.

Yes, I knew what was about to come.

She stood a little longer in thought. I would have liked to know what she was thinking.

Then she struck, grabbing my antennae and pulling as hard as she might. "GET DOWN FROM THERE!" she ordered.

"I'm sorry," I squeaked, because I would have gotten down already were I able to. I pulled at my tail, but felt no freer from the shackles, then looked to Mistress as if to prove my point, but her Pak's bio-mechanical limbs were poised and her eyes were on the ceiling. In one motion, her limbs lifted her and she dangled next to me. A couple of minutes more and I was released from the claw that had my tail; but Mistress was by no means precise when she sawed it off with her laser beam, possibly by intent. I could smell my flesh beginning to burn and winced as I felt it.

I fell, five feet or more until my posterior side collided harshly with the dampened floor. I couldn't gather my strength before Mistress was leaning over me. The collar of my uniform was in one of her fisted hands, while her other was pulled back high and over her head.

The anticipation felt when expecting pain is far worse than the actual blow.

But the remorse I felt during this mishap, it was even worse. I'd done something very wrong.

Anger. Undiluted anger in those cold eyes and in the folds of her lips as she lashed out at me.

She called me many curses and recited, "You! You!" time after time.

Those words in that demeanor…more hurtful to me than the keenest of jabs. My awareness of her bruising me was minimal. This fate was to be succumbed to. My fault, this was. We were going to be punished at _my_ fault. My wretched curiosity would cost us Mistress's freedom, and quite possibly, my life. I deserved this.

And yet, what was this sense of totality in me? The Tallest could choose to kill us, and though I had not reached my prime, I would be completely okay with dying. So long as I got a glimpse of my homeworld, of my brethren, of my _past_.

Still, however hopeful these thoughts, they had to be shunned. With difficulty, I forced them to the back of my mind.

I shan't like to defy my mistress, you see.

So I lay in nirvana as she made me a bloody outlet to her rage…

­­­

* * *

My head teemed with questions that I couldn't alleviate myself by inquiring about. She bid me to keep quiet as I sat in the corner, a coolant held to my swollen eyelid. I watched her pace around the lounge of our base. 

When she was "done with me", Mistress immediately tended to the wounds she'd caused. We shared a strange relationship, the both of us are, after all, strange people. By bandaging the damage she'd done, the apology was implied, and she was able to avert any dreaded sentiment.

As she pressed a pillow of gauze against an oozing wound just below my mouth, she answered the least of my questions. "Tallest Red and Tallest Purple are male," she said, "You and I are female. We look and sound a little different than them, but we are all of the same species, I'm sorry to report."

My response was small, a breathy little moan.

My reaction didn't strike her as appropriate. She gawked at me with a furrowed brow and then had me stand and lift my arms, modeling the work she'd just done. She made some adjustments to a bandage that obscured my vision a bit. Continuing, she said, "Females are often perceived as the lesser of the two. Don't think for a millisecond on that. Are we clear?"

I hummed again in agreement.

"We are Irken."

Hmm…well, that much I had already picked-up on. I became impatient, and looked away from her. The structure of the surgical table suddenly became very interesting.

"But you. You're different and the Tallest are afraid of you because you're different on so many levels. Your appearance, the mechanisms of your thought, even the way you move. I did a bad thing when I rescued you as a smeet." My eyes jarred to hers, but not for too long. "You were supposed to die.

"Skibby, before we are abducted from Retreatia, I want you to promise me one thing," her cold fingers were now thorns in the bend of my arm. Still, I did not meet her eyes until she shook me. Her other hand reached for my shoulder, and I suddenly felt myself come to sense. "Promise me that you'll stay loyal to us. Promise me that no matter how the Irkens prod you for information, that you will not tell them a thing, even if it means my death. Promise me that you'll not give up to fight when they analyze you."

I felt frightened, and my face mirrored that emotion. She shook me again, harshly.

"Pledge your allegiance to _our purpose_."

What could I do? I was obligated to pledge my allegiance to _her_, she had saved my life; but to pledge to "our purpose"? What exactly was this purpose?

Later I'd understand that our purpose was to remain as defective as possible.

But now, I feigned a relaxed demeanor through my confusion. "I made that pledge long ago," I said, loyally.

"Perfect," she answered, but flatly. Then she motioned for me to hop down from the operating platform and follow her to the upper chambers of the house.

So there I was, watching Mistress trudge in hopeless circles with my one good eye. The sound of her feet created an infuriating rhythm in my head, and my antennae buzzed. I couldn't sit there anymore. I was writhing with questions, so many questions about my life that would have been appropriate to ask right that moment, now that most of the secret was out. Years before, I had thought of many of those questions, but they seemed too stupid to be answered or even asked. Boldly, I stood on my floundering legs and asked the one that pertained the most to the times, "Can't we just take the Runner and escape?"

"No. The window is damaged, remember? Even if I did order a replacement shield, it wouldn't arrive in time, and Irken manufacturers have probably been notified to deny service to me—us, anyway."

"We could go into hiding in the fields," I declared.

"No," she repeated, "My Pak is bugged. They'll find me wherever I go." Her eyes widened. "But you…you may be able to hide if you wish. I made your Pak so it isn't compatible with their tracking sensors." She seemed hopeful, but this suggestion seemed to contradict her former statement of "staying loyal to us".

I could escape. But what then would I do? I'd have to settle for that fate of being lonely until death on a desolate planet. And I was sure that when our captors arrived, they'd hurt Mistress if she didn't divulge my whereabouts.

"I couldn't do that," I said.

"Good, because that was a test of your loyalty," she said, "Congratulations, you pass."

Again with her hollow congratulations. I felt cheated somehow. I sat back down.

Soon after, Mistress settled down beside me and sighed. "See here," she said, "You're confused. I can see it in your eyes. I promise, all will be made clear at the trial. They'll evaluate my life. You'll learn everything."

I nodded, staring at my knees. This was comforting. I was almost anxious for our captors to arrive.

Mistress got to her feet just as suddenly as she sat down. "These could be our last hours together," she said, "I say we make an event of it." She drifted out of the room, the seam of her robes streaming as she disappeared around the corner. She was back not a minute later, two juice boxes in her hands. She tossed one in my lap and again sat abreast me. "A toast," she said, "To forty years of you and me."

This was very not like Mistress Hexa. I bewilderedly punctured the top of the box with the straw, not removing my eyes from her as she held her own juice box for me to bump. I accepted the toast quickly, though no more understanding of the past events.

We sat in silence, sipping away at sweet defeat.

* * *

­­­­End A/N: Please pardon Hexa beating Skibby up. I figured that domestic abuse isn't as profane to Irkens as it is to humans. The two of them are linked, but being Irken, Hexa feels no real strong "family" tie between them. Skibby, however, is unhealthily loyal (like a doomed little human dog-monster) and able to forgive her mistress. I felt this was a good opportunity to showcase Skibby's nature. If she _does_ bear any grudges against Hexa for incidents like this, she chooses to leave them somewhat unexplored. She knows her place. Poor ickle buggah.

And I'm pretty sure Hexa's bipolar. Heh…_pretty_ sure? It's like this story is writing itself (God, I hope that's a good thing).


	5. Departure

A/N: This chapter was slow in development, because I needed a break. I'm a teenaged girl…sometimes I forget to act like one, so I wrangled up some buddies and we all went shopping and saw a movie and people-watched. :D

My History class gives me a lot of ideas.Why just today I was in there, and I was inspired to play out a really cool upcoming scene in my head. It's not _that_ upcoming though…probably many, manychapters off. Nonetheless, the manifestation of that scene gave this story a whole new direction.  
I should also give this particularly large thesaurus sitting in front of me some honorable mention…Ah, thesaurus, a junior author's best friend.  
But above all else, nothing keeps me going like the comments from you, the invaluable reader. I am kisser o' asses.

Only two (or perhaps three) chapters more until we land on Earth. Huzzah!  
Reason I liked this chapter: The word **"DOOMBOT"**.GLEE! It's also the lengthiest chapter to date, go me. Oh yeah, then there's the teensiest reference to a metal band. But just keep in mind that this chapter will probably undergo some editing, because I'm not altogether content with it.

Totally inapplicable, but…Does anybody realize the resemblance of Zim's uniform to Piglet (from Pooh-Bear)? Ah, that amuses me to no end.

This rambling needs to stop now. I could make a story from my author's notes alone, they're so effing long. Too often do I piss myself off. RAR. On with el show...

Chapter V – Departure 

I'll spare you a too detailed portrait of our last hours of freedom. Time crept slowly by. Time means much less to we Irken because we age slower than humans do. It was weird, though: had we a replacement windshield for the Spittle Runner, time would have been everything, as we'd be bustling to repair the ship and frantically packing the quintessential provisions.

But since the tables had turned against our favor, we had to wait instead.

I am a very impatient person. There was little I could think of that would ease my restlessness. Looking up at Mistress was painful. I would have liked to emulate her stoic behavior, but I was too faint of heart. I fidgeted, popped various joints of my skeleton, tangled my fingers in my antenna; there was nothing to do. Day-to-day leisure activities seemed so trivial at this moment. I wished Mistress would say something, it was useless for me to marinate in my own thoughts when soon everything would be revealed.

So I went right along performing awkward little gestures. I even went so far to hum a little tune.

This stirred Mistress Hexa.

I'd sung before, but not in front of her. She seldom cared much for music, so we never kept anything of much relevance in the house. She was shocked that I—so uninfluenced by music—would invent little melodies in my head and sing them out my mouth. I'd even go so far as to say she was impressed, though my voice isn't anything remarkable.

A rare look of accomplishment crossed her face. Not exactly a smile, I don't think she is capable of expressing her delight on that level, but she looked somewhat pleased.

Thusly, I was pleased. I hoped that by humming that song, I'd made up for ruining our lives to some extent. I was grateful for her again, ready to shun the memory of her harsh punishment.

I reveled in the thought of pleasing my mistress. I lost sight of the bigger picture. My contentment held me over for at least ten minutes, and then I reminded myself of the journey ahead of me, but I was less jumbled in thought now, being relaxed by those prevailing nice little thoughts.

Something occurred to me. The only home I'd ever had, Retreatia…it was likely that I'd never be coming back. It had been such a nice little planet to live on. It was warm, with mild temperatures almost all year through. It had more precipitation than most areas on earth, being predominantly tropical; though we were often detained so not to be burned, it was all the better for Mistress to conduct lab experiments with water. There was an abundance of ugly little indigenous life forms—more text subjects.

It _was_ pretty boring.

Nonetheless, my wretched, defective sentimentality got the best of me and I asked Mistress if I could go for a walk for one last good look at our home. She decided to follow, strangely. I knew she didn't care as much for the place as I did.

It was early in the evening. The sun was worming on the horizon, casting a pretty crimson sky. We walked through a thicket and got thorns stuck in our clothes and I tripped on the external root of some huge tree, landing in a pool of gelatinous sap. The walk proved to be less heart-felt than I'd fancied. I stormed back to the base, Mistress gliding along behind me. Maybe my sentiment wasn't as strong as I thought. My musings did a U-turn and I liked the idea of leaving that mean, lonely old planet.

More waiting ensued. I fidgeted a lot. Mistress scolded me (verbally) a lot. This continued for what I believe to be the longest hours in my lifetime.

* * *

There came a noise from the roof. Metallic turbulence, it sounded like. For a minute, I wondered if it was just the sounds of our house. It kept coming. They were here. They had to be. 

My heart wracked in my neck and in my fingers, so hard it felt like it would rupture my skin. I looked to Mistress, who was looking right back at me without an ounce of emotion to show. "Brace yourself," is all she had to say.

We stood beside each other with some distance from the house's entrance. I watched her to see if she'd advance towards the door, each muscle in me clenched. She didn't move, but my hands were stuck as fists. Then…

The door flew open, and on its own I might add. There was no familiar landscape beyond that door, just a murky fuschia light that swallowed up everything else. I blinked. Nothing. I screwed up my eyes to see if maybe I'd missed something. No.

I didn't drop my guard, but I coyly called Mistress. "Why aren't—"

A huge racket disallowed me from finishing. The ceiling was crumbling, and where there should have been wall, there was a dark mech of a fair size standing in its place, shrouded in a contradicting, luminescent pink. Technology of this kind I'd not seen before.

And I was very, very frightened, suddenly. I had a good mind to run away, but Mistress would be upset…

It sprang at us. She didn't budge, but the impact of its dense metal legs against the ground sent me toppling over. I watched from the ground as it seized Mistress up by the midriff as easily as she sometimes did me, but with even less gentleness. A red light issued from its "face" and washed over her eyes.

"Irken General-Invader Hexa. You are under arrest. Come quietly and we won't have to initiate extreme measures." The voice was much higher than you'd expect of a fierce doombot, but lower than mine was. I gauged that it belonged to a male.

Males intimidated me. I wondered when we would run into another female.

Mistress looked so small in the constraint of the mech. I was frightened that it wouldn't relent its squeezing of her, her chest was heaving, but her expression never changed from a cold gaze.

Then I was seized up myself, upside-down and by my tail of course. My kind seemed as intrigued by my deformity as they were sickened by it. "As for the mutant," boomed the mech, before it's tone changed drastically, "…Why don't we just initiate extreme measures anyway? Rough her up a little, see what this mech can _really_ do?" I could hear in his voice that he was roistering in his own sinister thoughts. I'd heard the same trait in Mistress.

Another voice from inside it said, "Nah. The Tallest want her in good condition for analysis. Besides, it looks like somebody beat us to the pummeling." He was referring to my bandage and puffy eye.

I'd gladly be pummeled by my skinny master over a two ton battle-mech any day. Ironically, my previous bruising was now working in my favor.

"Alrighty," he sounded a little put-out, "Geez, they didn't put up much of a fight, did they?"

"None," said the other, none too amused by his partner, "C'mon girls."

A cage on the mech's abdomen revealed itself and Mistress and I were stuffed inside. It began to trudge out of the house with the two of us in tow. The landscape passed under us at a sickening pace.

I wondered why we weren't already cruising outer space. When I tried to ask Mistress, she only shushed me and pointed to a big camera that hung from the ceiling. Then she drew in close to me and showcased a strange new mechanism on her wrist that was labeled "self-destruct". I flinched, thinking that she was in a frame of mind that would convince her to activate the device. I sighed when she diverted her attention to the view of our cage and folded her long arms behind her back.

I believe what she would have told me is that the mech was used solely for apprehending and disarming criminals. Irkens wouldn't do such things in person, it's way too risky. Instead, they control these large robots, out of the radius of the "self-destruct" thing's blast and safe from the threat of any other weapon.

In times that invoke the flow of adrenaline, these self-destruct things present themselves on Irken wrists. I don't have one, but I don't think I'd ever be compelled to use it, anyway.

The ceiling began to make buzzing sounds. Some sort of magnetic force pulled Mistress's self-destruct device away from her just as soon as she'd shown it to me, and it was lifted through a duct in the ceiling. Then, a metal arm for us each applied scraping pressure to our backs. Looking Mistress over after, I noticed a painfully conspicuous bolt jutting out from the shell of her Pak. I reached behind and below my neck and learned that I had a bolt, too. I strained in concentration to stir at least one of my bio-limbs, testing my grim suspicions.

Nothing. They were dead.

The words scrolled along in my mind as if in some sort of involuntary daydream: "PAK APPARATUS DISABLED"

I thought as much.

Our captors seemed to have little consideration as to how they were piloting the mech, it crushed a lot of things that didn't need to be. It tripped and fumbled as if in a blind stupor, and I couldn't help but think that they had had little experience with their mech. It wasn't safe to stand anymore, so Mistress and I settled on the floor, steadying ourselves by gripping the cold metal bars of our cage. Soon enough, we stopped moving in a stretch of empty sand dunes. It was quiet, until we heard a loud TWANG from above us.

We were being lifted. My heart collided with the rest of my innards, literally, like I was in the most unmerciful elevator in the universe. This went on for too long.

From the limited standpoint of our cage, we saw curved metal beams pass in and out of our blind spot. A dirty copy of the moon's image was reflecting off of the surface of a clear shaft that we were apparently now flying through.

At last, the mech broke through some sort of hatch and we found ourselves in the huge port of an even more huge ship. A physical spasm of intrigue swelled in my body and caused me to shudder. The construction of the ship was so new to me, but at the same time, so familiar; the color scheme, the level, polished surface of the beams that made up its basic framework. It was like being caged in a big, uncomfortable version of our Spittle Runner without cushy seats.

Beyond the bars of our cage and down a small flight of stairs sat a huge, thickset alien specimen on a metal bench. It sported awful arm and leg restraints. We would be joining that alien, soon, I was sure of it, and not looking forward to it either. Just to the right of him on a high, pink wall, there was a large monitor that was presently switched off.

The cage swung open, but not after we were fitted with those unpleasant restraints. They hung across our shoulders and locked our hands at a little above eye level. The ankle shackles were not so bad, but connected our feet with a short cable and would disallow us from running. I didn't, however, know where exactly we _could_ run. It would be stupid to head out into deep space with one's Pak disabled, one would inevitably implode, but I assume that's common knowledge among humans, already.

I realized that I'd lingered in the cage too long to think, because one of those metal arms came out and zapped me with its electric prod extension. A bit disoriented, I waddled after Mistress, who I'd only just noticed was taking a seat parallel of the big, scary alien.

I warily took a seat securely very near to her, not turning my back on the alien, but never allowing myself to meet eyes with it either. It was a felon, and looked the part. I took wonder in the knowledge that I was more scared of the beast in front of me than I was scared of being persecuted by the Tallest.

A revelation: "I really _must_ not be normal."

A shrill buzz of static announced that the monitor to our left had flickered on. The image displayed was a male Irken, his red oval eyes set high on his brow. "Greetings, outlaws," he said, "play nice with your fellow prisoner. He bites!" I recognized his voice as the one I'd heard earlier through the mech, the one that took amusement in the prospect of "roughin' me up". He continued with his gaze turning to the big alien, "Gwar!—" I didn't understand what he said next. Life was difficult without a language module. I recognized only on a few clicks and rolling R's.

"Get comfortable, it's about a week's journey to Judgementia. Don't try anything stupid."

Despite my screaming brain, I proceeded to try and get comfortable.


	6. Attack of the Space Chicken Man

**A/N:** I say "breast" in this chapter. This has nothing to do with mammaries. I prefer my Irkens without boobies, the same way I prefer my uncles without boobies.  
I have to stress a bit of a worry. This story seems to be headed in a direction that makes it more picaresque than plotful. I'm hoping we're all ok with that. If not, then I don't care. Thank you for your time. Oh jeebus, I'm being rude huh? Apologies, I'm recovering from a shitty haircut. So now, in the midst of my battle with muscle-crippling influenza, I bring unto thee, CHAPTER SEIS!  
Toodles.

* * *

**Chapter VI – Attack of the Space Chicken Man**

The longer I thought on my predicament, the more miserable I became. It was two days before Mistress even spoke to me again. I became a little crazy in those two days.

The cuffs weren't helping, either. My arms had passed the point of agonizing pain, soon I doubted that they'd ever move at my command again. They could fall off and I wouldn't take notice.

Every so often (after I'd lost some fear of the alien), I'd shimmy off the bench to stretch my legs and restore the feeling to my rear end. The draftsman and engineer were successful in creating this chamber if their plot was to centralize the flow of my blood to my squeedly spooch. As a result of this, my innards throbbed and ached in every grueling, nauseating possible fashion. Watching the snarling Gwar alien eat, it was especially difficult for me to keep my fluids down.

I gauged that Gwar was male, simply by the gluttonous manner in which he consumed his gray, curdled slop. Mistress and I—female— never ate like that. After making that assumption, my standard of males seemed decreased…

…Which Mistress would have seen as a step in the right direction, her being a sexist radical through and through.

But as I said, it was two days before she would so much as let loose a sigh.

She stripped my bandages off without forewarning and turned away without a comment. _Then_ she sighed.

I surveyed her. The expression I'd come to fear the most, that portrayal of vacancy was etched into her features. When she entered the thought process, Mistress tossed aside all other matters. She didn't spare one brain cell, which is why her face was devoid of the scowl she usually so masterfully displayed. She slouched and contorted oddly, only the top of her back supported, so that the bolt in her Pak met the wall at an ugly angle.

Eventually, she felt my gaze. She didn't look to me, though. She said in a breath, "This is my fault, Skibby."

That was the way she was. She'd admit her errors and take blame, but never give an apology. I would have liked for her to give one right then, so I straightened up and tried to look attentive. I knew better though. I was cursed with the hope of a fool.

"It was wrong of me not to tell you about the Irken."

My shoulders lowered. I sought to console, "You couldn't have known it would end up this way."

"Ha! I knew all along that it would."

I wasn't sure how to respond. I half expected her to admit that her pride was what kept her from telling me about our home planet. I then made a mental note not to think that way of her and scorned myself. Overwhelmed by this conversation, my eyes drifted to Gwar, asphyxiated in his abysmally wide basin of curd-paste.

What an ugly thing to behold. He had a dark, green-gray complexion and small brown eyes with long cloven pupils set deep under his cliff-like brow on his disproportional thin face. His teeth were yellowed, blunt and assembled in rows after row. I suppose in comparison, you might find his body structure similar to that of a plucked chicken's, sans beak. His arms were short, but bursting with muscle; it looked very unnatural, like at one point in time they'd been in scale with the rest of him, but they shriveled up somehow. The underside of those arms, the side we were unfortunately most exposed to because of the shackles, was paler than the rest of his body and sown with thick, innumerous hairs.

I wondered how Gwar thought. I would have spoken to him had he not scared, disgusted, or spoke a different language.

In those days, I was very ignorant to what makes a person. I suppose you could even say I was shallow, but could you blame me? Gwar was stupid simply because he looked stupid and ate stupid. Strangely, I think I might have been aware to the irrationality of my assumptions, but my assumptions were all that I had.

Mistress cleared her throat, trying to be unobtrusive about it. I faced her, but her back was to me. Eventually, she got up and sauntered over to a corner of the cell where the mech was still planted in its hatch. I would have followed her, but she was making weird, choking sounds.

In the thirty-eight years I'd known her, that was the first time I saw her cry. Her back tensed with every awkward sob and her fingers flailed, curling and mantling, in her restraints. She fought against those tears, but couldn't hold them at bay.

Scared, I drew my shackled legs close to my chest. I suddenly felt very stupid. I shouldn't have been excited to see my planet. I just left a perfectly good life on Retreatia. We were going to _pay_ for what we had done, probably with our bloodshed (or through whatever method Irkens killed each other with). Was I really prepared to die?

My foolish optimism spoke without my asking it to. It wondered if by some crazy twist of fate that we'd be set free, and that the allegations would be dropped. Maybe that was asking a little much. I told my optimism to be reasonable. The best case scenario would have us escaping the ordeal with the slightest punishment, something like janitorial services. Still, though I didn't know many Irkens, Mistress had an obscured opinion of what "slight" meant.

Mistress was extreme, the Tallest were extreme, the officers were extreme…

Oh yes, the officers. They had proven themselves to be quite the interesting team. One was senior to the other, in age and in position. I believe his name was Nache. Officer Nache, always in the passenger's seat of the vessel, at least he always was when they checked up on us. The collar of his uniform obscured the view of his mouth, adding to the intimidation factor. It seemed he had no reason to be aboard other than to instruct, observe, and right the various wrong doings of his pupil, who's name was Ram.

Ram was a little overconfident in light of the many fouls he made. In fact the only time Ram's doings pleased Nache was when he spontaneously utilized the monitor to throw insults at us; which was interesting because none of the insults were well thought-out, clever, nor eloquently delivered. They weren't even insults really, just observable commentaries on our appearance. Even more interesting is that he was of the same species and pointed out a lot of characteristics that were distinct in himself. It brought a whole new meaning to the Earth saying, "it takes one to know one". It was a little maddening, not because it hurt, because it didn't. It was the fact that Nache thought it was funny; though we couldn't see his smile, his eyes would squint and wrinkle in that raspy chortle of his.

When they spoke to Gwar, he responded by shrieking alien curses (I assume) at the monitor.

I was shy of everything, so I didn't say a word when they spoke in Irken, just let my annoyance compile. Mistress did nothing short of blink.

I wondered how much anger she'd congested her head with over the past few days before releasing it all in tears. I wondered how long it took for the reality of our situation to fully seep in. I couldn't look at her that way. It was almost disgusting. She hated it when I cried, and now, it seemed that was true vice-versa. I felt too many things when she cried. Distress because she was making annoying sounds, deceit because she made herself out to be the type who never cried, debate because I didn't know if I should console her or not, and of course, I felt defective compassion. (A/N: Repetition of initial "D" sounds!)

In response to all that, I tried to stay blind to the twitchy sight of her, but a huge "BOM" sound, like a mallet pounding a hollowed metal shell made me look in that direction. I saw Mistress wobble, whip and hit the side of the mech with a whap, and then collapse to the floor face first.

Oh me. She was unconscious.

I rushed (that term used lightly) over, oblivious to Gwar behind me. I turned her over. A large bruise tinctured the skin on her brow. I felt, and there was a faint pulse in her wrist. Relief…until…

Gwar issued a snort. I turned to find him behind me, weird eyes transfixed on Mistress. Slowly, he backed away from the scene and eventually stopped when the wall drew too near. He pawed the ground (uncannily chicken-like) and situated into the proper stance. Spontaneously, he charged at us, his weight focused at his upper chest.

Fear of that kind I'd not felt since the incident a few days ago in the spittle runner, but this time, there was something that could be done to prevent a catastrophe.

Pitiful, defective little me didn't know that Irkens like to subscribe to the concept of "every man for himself". But even if I had time to evaluate the situation, I wouldn't have pondered that.

In an impromptu act, I wrenched Mistress's limp body out of Gwar's line of trajectory, but not with any real ease. His huge form meteored into the exact place where Mistress had been only seconds before. Idiot creature. Clearly he didn't consider what tactics his opposition might make use of, however small. Now he struggled uselessly on the floor for a while, his ineptly stubby legs fighting desperately against the floor to lift him while his arms tensed in futility. This bought me some time. I now began to search for some means of defense. I was clueless to his intentions, but I was willing to defend to my strength's limits.

Our Paks were made essentially unusable. A quick look around found me nothing but an extra sheet of steel that didn't make it into the final configuration of the ship. If I don't say so myself, a paltry tool that would have been overlooked in any other situation, but it could do as a makeshift shield. I rushed to retrieve it. Not at all was it a convenient size. It was almost too big for me to move, but too small to effectively shield the both of us. Still, I made do and dragged it to the scene where Mistress was.

Gwar eventually got up, and when he caught sight of me, it seemed he recognized what I was trying to do and began to circle Mistress and I; awkward little shifty steps. Frightened, I set the shield below eye-level and pivoted to meet his dubious path. He'd make false advances and I'd flinch. Then I knew I had no chance. Finally, he charged.

I shrunk down and cowered behind the shield, my short, scrawny, restrained arms the only thing propping it up. The metal vibrated, but didn't give way. I peeped over the top to find Gwar attacking the thing rather than shoving it out of the way; but by doing so, I lost the force holding up the sheet and it and I fell back on top of Mistress. The edge of it rested right against my breast. I dared not to look when my ribs shattered.

Gwar took a big swipe with his clawed foot. My ribs didn't snap, but I found quickly that breathing was a labored task.

In all the excitement, I hardly took heed to the red luminescence that filled, and died in, and again filled the room.

"WARNING: AUTOMATED ALERT. EXCESSIVE ACTIVITY IN PRISONER CELL." That booming, one-tone, dissonant electronic voice upset my antennae. I bellowed, but the noise spared me a devastating blow from the alien.

When he found it best to ignore the ship's reaction, Gwar lifted the sheet off of me, fell back a short distance and stomped in anticipation to crush us both.

Just then, the ceiling buzzed, and I discovered a large duct that apparently had always been there. A little light near it turned on and its pod bay doors spread open. On a conveyer platform, Nache and Ram were lowered down to us, both of them brandishing a long stick that was perch to a large, white egg-shaped object. The Officers were shorter than I expected, this being the first time I met them in person. This _was_ the first time I'd met any Irken besides Mistress in person. My stupid wonderment got the best of me and I lost time to dodge Gwar, who knocked me off of Mistress harshly and got poised to stomp on her. I remember screaming something.

The officers rushed toward Gwar just before he raised his heavy foot over Mistress's already wounded head. With a great combined effort, they managed to force him against the wall, but not without getting knocked away several times. From Nache's egg-topped staff, he withdrew a huge needle as Ram held fast to the alien's neck with both hands, bio-limbs scraping the floor to steady himself as Gwar writhed. Next, Nache stabbed Gwar's meaty underarm with the needle. It penetrated slowly and made a crackling noise. That species had thick and rugged skin. I stretched my neck to watch a translucent liquid descend the cylinder it was in and into Gwar's system.

I'd always been fascinated by the effectiveness of tranquilizers. The screw-heads often fell victim to our needles. In such a case, their heads went limp and their eyes dimmed, but always slowly, almost gracefully.

Gwar? He rolled his tiny eyes into his thick skull and toppled over, like an immense spinning top after losing momentum, and the floor shook when he made impact. The officers left him there and rushed to Mistress, who was the most unscathed of any of us in the room, self-afflicted head wounds aside. I arose and limped to stand near the action.

"W-will she be alright?" I regretted having spoken up immediately and shrunk into myself a little. Bad idea. My ribs were tender since that blow from Gwar. I shuddered when they looked down at me, which didn't win me any sympathy.

The two of them eyed me and looked to one another quizzically. Ram dwarfed his instructor by a few inches, I so vitally observed at this time.

They seemed confused with how to answer me. I don't think that they completely expected that I would know how to speak.

"We're taking her to the care unit." Ram articulated. Dually they lifted her and hobbled back to the conveyer platform. In a matter of seconds, they were gone.

Though ravaged, I darted to take my seat near the monitor. Again, I wouldn't allow my back to face Gwar, despite the fact that he was presently out cold.

I was alone, and worse, hungry. Mistress hadn't shared a nutrient upload with me in days.

* * *

A/N: Confusion? Hexa got really mad at herself and banged her head against the mech's surface, resulting in a concussion. As for the "nutrient upload" thing, I derived that from the commentary on the episode "Germs". Jhonen says that Irkens don't need food, they get everything from their Paks. Skibby isn't networked to the nutrient…giver…so she has to rely on the generosity of Hexa. Unfortunately, generous Hexa is a bit of an oxymoron. Tha End. 


End file.
